Lover Mine (Blood Brothers 1)

by BJ Brandon

  The smaller of the two men said his name was David or Davey, she wasn't sure which, because he mumbled every time he came into the room with anyone other than a nurse. She could tell he was shy but he wouldn't meet her eyes, wouldn't even look directly at her when she tried to thank him for being on duty. He was cute in a silent, cuddly way but there was a sadness about him that made Chayle want to hug him for some reason, which really was out of the norm for her.

  When the other giant appeared the afternoon of the third day Chayle was shocked at not only his size but his eyes. They were the strangest green she had ever seen, dark depths that spoke of pain and an inner strength of steel. Davey had said the other man's name was Mercury and that he was their team leader, but other than those few comments she knew nothing of her guards.

  Suddenly memories came flooding back at the thought of how easily she had been taken and why the men were even necessary, and Chayle cringed. No one was truly safe anymore.

  Wasn't that what her father use to tell her before he was killed? She missed him now, missed his strength and stubbornness even if he had tried to protect her too often in his own way. What else could be expected from a Sergeant Major in the Marines? God, if he were alive now what would he do in this situation?

  Even with two years of intensive self-defensive courses and working out three days a week she couldn't have taken any of the men who kidnapped her. Her father had been right, it was impossible to know who she could trust anymore.

  She still couldn't fathom why she was taken since at twenty-eight years old Chayle knew she didn't fit the profile for human trafficking. She was a military analyst for a defense contractor with nothing important to offer a group like this. Those who were usually targets were younger, beautiful, usually blonde or close to it, especially blue or green eyes and highly marketable were higher on the list. Chayle's chocolate and gold eyes were nothing special and her chestnut curls were long and unruly most of the time but nothing to draw anyone's attention.

  Looking down at her bruised and batter body, she decided now was not the time to try to figure out the method to their madness. She desperately wanted and needed a shower.

  It took more of her strength than she had bargained for to get into the shower without calling one of the orderly for help, but as the hot spray beat over her skin, Chayle sighed. She ignored the bruises showing along her ribs and thighs and just let the hot water soak into her bones, relaxing muscles and slowly allowing aches to ease. It had only been three days and they were now darker, angrier than they looked originally. She forced herself to move and draw deeper breaths into sore lungs and make those muscles work again. The doctors had said she was just as bruised internally but no permanent damage that they could find, and once she was feeling up to it she could start building her strength back up to what it was before the incident.

  The incident . . . like it was some kind of accident, or occurrence. Anger rose deep from her chest and before she could stop it a sob escaped.

  "No! Stop it! You cannot let them win!" she cursed softly aloud, turning off the water and stepping from the shower. Trying to think of something else, her mind instantly went to angry blue eyes and luscious male lips.

  She hadn't seen those annoying twins for three days, now that she knew for sure they were brothers. However, the men's presence posted outside her room continued to remind her how lucky she was to be alive. The pesky little runt named Davy sat outside her door today, following her whenever she tried to walk the halls.

  Chayle was tired of it. She wanted out of here and she wanted it now! She would heal better on her own, outside of this hospital.

  She pushed back the curtain only to scream when a towel was thrust into her hands. It took a second to wipe her face and glare at the offender, coming face to face with the one person whom she had just been fantasizing about only moments before.

  Her very own dark angel!. And didn't it just have to be her luck that it was the one who always seemed to be in a bad temper!

  "What are you doing here?" she spat out, wrapping the towel around her, twisting it over her breasts.

  Kayne just watched her, his Prussian blue eyes mesmerizing for long seconds as she tried to make herself breathe. The room seemed to close in around her, pressing in, making it hard to get air in her lungs whenever this man was in the small private room and it had nothing to do with his intimidating size.

  She tried to edge past him from the small bathroom to the bedroom but he didn't budge, just leaned against the doorjamb as if he owned it, looking at her. Licking her lips, Chayle straightened to her full five feet eight inches and pushed past him, her nipples beading as they scraped his rough shirt.

  Kayne nearly came in his jeans! His zipper was already pressing a seam against his cock when he had walked in and heard the shower going, just thinking about all of that wet skin. Now her perky little nipples pebbled so nice and hard just under the towel after brushing up against him and his cock jerked, begging to come out to play.

  "Easy, brother! You can't scare her like that . . . she has been terrorized and brutalized enough. She won't accept your touch so easy until she heals." Rafe's rational echoed in his mind, but it wasn't a reminder Kayne needed. Nightmares still haunted him of the cabin they had found her in, her body hanging from those chains.

  "Do we tell her the reason we haven't been here since we brought her in, Rafe?" he growled back silently, his uncertainty never showing in the frown while he burned to kill all of them again.

  The bruises on her legs peaked out from under the towel, darker and harsh against her skin as they began to heal. She tried to pull a soft T-shirt over her chestnut curls pulling the towel lower around her waist and his breathing hitched at the patches of skin revealed.

  "It will be the only way to gain her trust, me thinks," was the chuckling reply. Kayne continued to watch the female as she slowly moved over to the small closet and pulled a few clothes from it.

  "What do you think you're doing?" he finally said.

  "Leaving!" Chayle hissed, trying to hold the towel in place as she held the closet door open with her hip, tugging the T-shirt over her small breasts. Thank goodness she didn't need a bra, she groaned. No way could she handle the thing against her chest right now with all of the bruising and minor cuts under her breasts.

  "That's what you think!" Kayne reached for the shirt, only to have his hand batted away. He watched, thunderstruck, as the sprite tried to hold the towel, grab the shirt and hold the door all at the same time. "Hold still! You'll harm yourself again," he growled, jerking the shirt from her.

  "What do you care? You haven't been here to see what they have been doing to me!" she screamed, frustration winning over her efforts. She held onto the shirt like a determined bulldog in spite of the fact that his big hand held it slightly above her head.

  "Please," she finally whispered, "let me get dressed. And for your information . . . I didn't do this to myself," he heard her breathe as she tried to turn from him.

  Chayle's shocked eyes met Kayne's when he reached for her chin, forcing her eyes to meet his. "Did anyone else harm you while you were here?"

  It took Chayle a moment to realize that he was clenching his jaw but the words were whispered, barely a breath in the now quiet room. Tension filled the space between them as if an electrical storm had moved into the small space, causing the hairs on the back of her neck to stand up. Shivering, she could only stare into his strange blue eyes and shake her head no.

  "My brother and I have been absent because we were hunting down the rest of those who would harm you and the other women. There will be no one else coming for you, at least not from those that were with that group." Kayne released the shirt they both held, allowing her to finish pulling it to her chest.

  "What do you mean . . . hunted down?" she whispered.

  "They are no more!" he growled, reaching up to stroke a bruise that still marred her shoulder above the towel. "Now dress . . . we are leaving this place if you're ready." Kay
ne moved back, giving her just enough room to breathe. He watched her pretty nipples pebble under the thin T-shirt she had pulled on and silently bit back a groan.

  "What do you mean . . . leaving?" She gulped as he growled again, his head lowering. "I'm leaving here alone, thank you very much!" Chayle tried to push past him, but the brute just stood there.

  "Do you mind?" she hissed, as she tried to push past him again.

  "You are coming to a safe house. No arguments." Kayne didn't elaborate since he really didn't see the need. Damn, why hadn't his brother taken this on? He was the empathic one, better at soothing and getting his way than Kayne ever was at these things. Then he looked down at the bruises and barely healed swelling just below the hem of the shirt where it hung below her groin and knew why.

  "Mine!" No one could touch her again . . . not and live.

  "Easy brother! We've got everything in place to protect her." Rafe whispered in his mind, "Just get her out of there and to our house. We'll see how things go from there."

  It took a moment to realize that the female was dressing and mumbling to herself, causing Kayne to grin. If she could accomplish only half the things she was wishing on his anatomy it would be a miracle of science, not to mention a freak of nature. Still, her amazing twists of the English language entertained him as he turned his back to give her a semblance of privacy. When he turned he found her sitting on the edge of the small bed looking at her tiny feet, bewildered tears trickling down her chafed face.

  "What troubles you, woman?" Kayne whispered as he knelt in front of her, watching the strange play of emotions over her pale face. Her chocolate eyes were lit with tawny flicks trying to hide the pain she must still feel and the tears she valiantly attempted to hide from him, causing his chest to ache.

  "They didn't even leave me any shoes." Her soft admission nearly broke his heart.

  Kayne knew he no longer had a soul and his heart had been hardened long ago by the things the military scientists and their form of humanity justified in doing to one another. He and his band of brothers and sisters worked as Guardians now.

  Their abilities made them freaks to those they had served , and now he and his teams worked to keep mankind from extermination by forces it had no idea were even within their mists. Now, watching this small woman touched a core of something he didn't want to think about right now. When Chayle looked up at him with tears in those dark eyes, he felt a band tighten around his chest.

  "Enough!" he growled, moving over to pick her up. "You won't need shoes anyway."

  Chayle's unladylike squawk filled the room as she came up against his huge chest. Arms like vise grips wrapped around her so gently not even a bruise ached. Her arms automatically snaked around his neck when he growled at someone behind them.

  "Come get the rest of her stuff and let's move it." The guard who called himself Davey slipped into the room with a duffel bag and began to quickly stuff her meager belongings into it while she watched in stunned silence, his bemused grin looking over a wide shoulder ever so often. When she felt her face heating, it was too much.

  "Put me down!" Chayle hissed through clenched teeth, slugging Kayne's chest with her fist as if it would do any good at all.

  "Be still or I'll paddle your ass." He shifted her weight as he turned to look at Davey, and then growled. "What are you looking at, runt?"

  "Nothin' boss!" The younger man hid a smirk as he watched Kayne struggle with the curvy woman in his arms. "The SUV is waiting down stairs in the back, but I'm sure you already know that since Rafe is driving."

  Indeed, his brother was waiting patiently but they needed to move it. Kayne's senses were working overtime and something was off. He tensed, his enhanced hearing picking up a number of footsteps that shouldn't have been coming their way so soon.

  "We're out of time, Davey. We need to move, now!"

  Grabbing the younger man by the scuff of the neck, Kayne all but threw him out of the door in front of him as he carried Chayle. He heard her begin to make noises as if to scream but he lowered his lips to her ear lobe, brushing it with his lips. Her unique scent was the same as before but healthier and cleaner, and Kayne found his cock growing even harder than before if that were possible.

  "Hush, bella!. No one will harm you, remember? I promised." Then he dropped a kiss on the soft shell of her ear.

  She heard someone yell for them to stop but Chayle forgot to breathe.

  In the middle of their flight down the stairs with someone obviously chasing them, all she could do was cling to Kayne's broad shoulders. A shadow in her mind remembered a promise from somewhere of safety, and it settled over her like a blanket. Her hands clung to Kayne's thick neck as he descended the stairs two at a time with her clinging to him like a monkey. She heard muffled shouts behind them and a scream from someone but then quiet.

  Davey was flying down the stairs in front of them at almost a run with her meager things flung over his back all the while talking to someone she couldn't see. She tried to ask where they were going but a quelling look from Kayne had her shutting up when they came to a landing where Davey quietly opened the door and slipped out.

  "Why are you acting like this?" she hissed, slapping his shoulder again before Chayle realizing it. "You can't just kidnap me again, you moron. I won't let you!"

  "And just what are you going to do about it?" The mountain of a man didn't even bother to hide his amused grin as he cradled her high against his chest. He knew she couldn't fight him, but Chayle was determined not to be a victim again.

  "Stop it!" She punched his shoulder, thoroughly aware that it hurt her knuckles more than it did the tight muscles bunched under his T-shirt. "You aren't some Neanderthal, for goodness sake. At least tell me where we're going."

  Kayne was amazed that not only had this small female dared to hit him several times, but was under the impression that she could sway him from his intentions of removing her from the current situation. He almost smiled at the look on her face.

  His face never betrayed the multitude of emotions flooding him, all so new it caused his heartbeat to pound in his ears. Chayle Olsen was a female who, he realized between one heartbeat and the next, mattered. The fact that she was brave enough to argue with a stranger, even if he claimed to have been the one to rescue her, made her all the more fascinating. She wasn't screaming or hysterical like most other females would be at the situation they might find themselves in, but continued to hit him with her tiny fists.

  "Are you going to get her to the SUV without further assistance or do I need to help?" Rafe's amused question almost pushed his patience to the limits. He looked down at the fuming woman in his arms and clenched his teeth.

  "Just get the damn thing to the door and stop being an ass." If she continued to wiggle that pert little butt of hers and squirm in his arms, everyone including Rafe would see the evidence of how this female affected him.

  "So, you finally accept it, my brother." Kayne took a deep breath, realizing that the unique mind-link his twin shared with him could not prevent both of them from knowing what the other felt at a primal level. "It's about time you realize you can't remain totally alone."

  "Look who's talking!" Shutting down the link was impossible so he didn't even try. From the moment he had seen Chayle hanging from that ceiling, felt her mental anguish reaching out to him across the forest even while unconscious, their fates were forever linked. Somehow destiny had sent his team to that remote location to get her and now he didn't know if he would be able to let her go.

  "Stop ignoring me, moron!" The object of his thoughts took that exact moment in time to decide to try to jackknife her shapely legs in his grasp, her hipbone scraping against his painful erection. "Either talk to me or put me down this instant."

  Chayle hadn't been this mad since some dumbass had rear ended her new car and almost totaled it, and of course he hadn't had any insurance. Now she was being carted around like a sack of potatoes by a giant who refused to tell her where they were going and ke
pt giving her killer looks every time she asked him logical questions. A girl could just scream.

  She watched Davey slip silently out the stairwell door and Kayne shifted her in his arms. Then the door quietly opened again and they were quickly rushing out, climbing into a black SUV parked just outside the door. Chayle wasn't given time to look around or see where they were, much less allow anyone to see her being shuttled into the vehicle. As soon as the doors closed behind them, the huge truck was speeding out of the underground garage and into traffic.

  "Are you finally going to tell me where we're going, or do I get to wait and be surprised?" she lambasted him yet again. She huffed as he settled her in his lap instead of on the leather seat next to him, and Chayle was reminded of the impressive length of male hardness she had felt earlier under his leather pants. She wiggled her butt to get comfortable, or so she tried to tell herself, and heard his quick indrawn breath as her firm rear rubbed against him.

  "If you don't keep still you may find yourself with more than you can handle, woman!" Kayne whispered near the soft shell of her ear. He kept his words soft for her ears only, but he knew his brother's excellent hearing would still pick up the threat. A warm lick of her earlobe was unavoidable as he watched her cheeks flush with his warning and his lips curved just a bit.

  "You don't scare me." Chayle refused to look at him, choosing to watch the buildings flash by at an alarming rate as she wondered where they were taking her and why. The brothers had told her the threat was gone, they had promised. Didn't they say the ones who had taken her were dead? Or was there something else?

  "If you got the kidnappers why are we leaving the hospital like this?" she finally managed to ask, her breathing escalating with her raging thoughts.